The Killing Room (Richard Montanari) - By Richard Montanari Page 0,24

although the rusted surface of the metal might make that difficult.

They stopped for a light. ‘What do you think?’ Jessica asked.

‘I think I need another day off already.’

‘Do you think this was a ritual killing?’

‘Well, the ritual killings we’ve investigated in the past have been just that, right? Killings. This guy was alive when we got there. I think he was left that way on purpose. For ten days.’

‘But why that place?’

Byrne turned onto Latona Street. ‘Good question. Maybe he used the place to shoot up. There was plenty of paraphernalia on the first floor.’

‘You’re not thinking this was a drug hit, are you?’

Byrne shook his head. ‘I doubt it.’

Jessica agreed. This wasn’t really a drug dealer’s style. They usually went for an efficient, cost-effective double tap to the back of the head. Although there were serious sadists in that business. Both Jessica and Byrne had investigated drug-related homicides that had been committed with hatchets, shovels, machetes, and sundry other weapons.

While the murder did not seem like a drug killing at the moment, if Jessica had learned anything in her time in the unit, it was that you couldn’t rule anything out in the first few hours of an investigation.

‘What about the cop angle?’ she asked. ‘I’m wondering if this could be a holdover from his days on the street.’

‘Could be that,’ Byrne said. ‘Could very well be that.’

The Palumbo address was a well-kept, white-washed two-story rowhouse on Latona Street, between Eighteenth and Nineteenth. Entrance was via a black-wrought iron security door, flanked by a mailbox to the right, address above. Under the front window was an empty flower box, painted brown, partially wrapped in blue plastic sheeting. Two basement windows were clad in vented glass block.

Byrne rang the doorbell. After a few moments the door opened.

The woman standing before them was in her late fifties or early sixties. She had moist blue eyes that drooped slightly at the corners, and wore a light green waitress uniform with the name LORRIE stitched on the left side. She had the weary countenance of someone who had worked on her feet her entire adult life. In her hands was a well-laundered pink dishtowel.

Jessica and Byrne produced their badges and ID.

‘Are you Loretta Palumbo?’ Jessica asked.

‘Yes,’ the woman said, a bit cautiously, as if she had done this many times before. She squinted against the sudden blast of cold air. ‘I am.’

‘Ma’am, my name is Detective Balzano, this is my partner, Detective Byrne. We’re with the Philadelphia Police Department.’

The look on the woman’s face said that she knew. Not that she was aware that her son was dead, or any of the circumstances surrounding his murder, but just that she knew. It was a look that all but proclaimed that she had been waiting for this visit every day for a very long time.

‘You’re not with the Drug Unit,’ she said.

‘No, ma’am,’ Byrne said. ‘May we come in?’

The woman hesitated, then stepped to the side. ‘I’m sorry. Please.’

The front room was very tidy and well-kept. The floral brocade sofa and chair against the sidewall were old, but covered in clear plastic. There were crystal ashtrays on every table, all brightly polished. On the walls were a half-dozen framed renderings of Jesus and the Virgin Mary. On the mantel over the bricked-in fireplace was a picture of Danny Palumbo in uniform, wearing his patrolman’s cap, dress blues. It was hard for Jessica to reconcile this handsome young man with the person she had seen bleed out in that frigid basement.

What had happened to him?

‘Is there anyone else here right now?’ Byrne asked.

‘No. I’m here all by myself.’

‘Ma’am, do you have a son named Daniel?’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Danny is my son.’

‘When was the last –’

‘He’s dead, isn’t he?’

The question floated in the dry, overheated air for a moment. ‘Yes, ma’am,’ Byrne said. ‘I’m afraid so.’

The woman’s gaze slowly moved from Byrne to Jessica, as if Jessica might have a different opinion, as if Jessica might disagree with Byrne and tell her that there might have been some kind of a mistake. Jessica had seen the look before, many times. Unlike the incidence of disease, there were no second opinions in homicide.

‘We’re very sorry for your loss,’ Byrne said.

The woman crossed the kitchen, reached into a cupboard, pulled out a cup. It was not a coffee mug, but rather a child’s brightly colored plastic tumbler. Jessica noticed that it was decorated with characters from the Flintstones. The woman didn’t pour anything into it – no coffee,